You-all

Dear old and new friends, The old Irish marriage proposal, “How would you like to be buried with my people,” reflects pride in one’s family and its significance in life. Family gifts to each of us an identity, the security of belonging and the most ancient of insurance policies in needy times. Be proud that you are a branch on your family tree that is larger than a 330-foot California Sequoia! An anonymous poet used an old southern expression to tell of the enormous size of your family. “You-all means a race or section, family, party, tribe or clan; You-all means the whole connection of the individual man.” The “whole connection” includes kissing cousins and Dutch uncles who aren’t blood relatives but being dear friends become family. Let’s say for an important event you desired to host all your living relatives at a grand dinner—how many would have to be invited and could you locate all of them? Being a nation of immigrants, few of us can name family members beyond Second or Third Cousins or maybe a couple First or Second Cousins once removed. Our original immigrants and their children moved several times, and often to distant places, so each of us surely has unknown living family relatives. But how many? At least one million! According to geneticist scholars we each have that many family members as close as a Tenth Cousin! Image a million relatives! Weekly news reports some horrible disaster, train wreck or massive fire in our country. To put flesh on that catastrophe glaring across the full color image of it on television, see this line: “A member of your family is among the dead or injured!” When a panhandler approaches, look into his eyes and think, “Are you my Third Cousin once removed?” Globally our hereditary realities are even more staggering as geneticists also say no person on this earth is any further removed from you than your Fiftieth Cousin! Consider the double-edged sword impact of such seeming unimportant genetic facts. First, if you were lovingly respectful, patient and unconditionally accepting of everyone you-all encountered, how dramatically changed would be your world. Second, if you were lovingly respected and unconditionally accepted by all those who came into contact with you, how deeply changed you-all would be!

From Entertainment to Inner-Attainment

Preparation is needed for every holiday, so use this week to plan how to celebrate Halloween a week from today. This holiday of jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating was primarily for children until recently when adults began to have parties attired in costumes. It first began as a festival of the dead over 2500 years ago in Ireland when summer officially ended at sunset on October 31st. On this night the Celts believed the souls of those who died that year roamed the land searching for a living person to inhabit for the next year. So Ireland’s early inhabitants disguised themselves as the dead or ghosts to frighten away the roaming souls of the departed. Halloween survived Christianity’s purge of paganism—thank God—and the Irish immigrants fleeing the great 1840’s potato famine brought with them their Halloween customs to America. Jack-o-lanterns first appeared in the Emerald Isle as large turnips carved with demon faces with a tiny light inside. In the States, failing to find turnips large enough, the Irish used pumpkins in their place. The tricks-or-treats of this holiday weren’t a Celtic custom but began in 9th century Europe for the second day of November—All Souls Day. On that day people visited homes begging treats of square biscuits called soul cakes. This pious practice soon merged with those of All Hallows Eve and was quickly adopted by actual beggars. They would go begging door-to-door for soul cakes in exchange for the promise of prayers they would say for the deceased of that family. As the number of treats equaled the sum of promised prayers, the typical householder was generous to obtain the release of loved ones from purgatory. The entertainments of this festival of the dead offer an occasion for the inner-attainment of a communion with our beloved dead. By remembering them with a prayer or by gazing lovingly on their photographs we receive a blessing as we make a mystical pilgrimage to their gravesites. In Islam this blessing by God for visiting shrines and a saint’s tomb is called “Baraka.” All Hallows, the Feast of “All” Saints, is a celebration of your deceased family and friends who are among the inestimable multitude of saints. As a parent would move heaven and hell to assure their children or lover reside in the bliss of heaven, so God unconditionally gifts everyone with eternal life.

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.